EXCLUSIVE: Matt Smith (House Of The Dragon) and Imogen Poots (Chronology Of Water) are attached to star in mystery-thriller The Salamander Lives Twice, which Embankment Films has boarded for sales ahead of the Cannes market.
House Of The Dragon and Doctor Who Smith will play a “debonair stranger who washes ashore on a remote island wearing a Rolex and holding an briefcase he can’t open, with no memory of who he is or why he is there. Taken in by the sole inhabitants – Iris, a glamorous wine-soaked matriarch, her erudite daughter Goggy (Poots) and Baby, their giant naked butler – he is drawn into their bizarre and decaying world. But this is no accident. And what begins as sanctuary turns into something far stranger, far darker – a world of pent-up revenge, sinister family betrayal and shocking violence”.
The film reunites writer Toby Harvard and director Ant Timpson for their third project after Bookworm and Come to Daddy. Additional casting is in process.
Producers are Emma Slade and Roxi Bull for Velvet Moss (Come to Daddy) and Andy Starke (Possessor) for Anti-Worlds. The team is eyeing a February 2027 shoot “on a remote island”.
Embankment’s Archie Faulks described the film as “a wildly entertaining Hitchcockian thriller served up on a gourmet platter of absurdist comedy and psychological suspense. It keeps audiences guessing right up to an ending they won’t see coming and won’t forget.”
A version of the script was announced pre-pandemic but it now has new impetus with different cast, producers and seller.
